9.6.2014 1:10, Paul Bartlett wrote:
>> On 6/8/2014, Risto Kupsala wrote:
>>
>> [trimmed]
>>
>>> There is a better solution. Pick 20-50 languages that have the greatest
>>> number of speakers. See what they have in common. Voilà! You have
>>> discovered the ingredients of a *worldlang*!
>>
>> And are there really enough forms in common to create a genuinely
>> useful language in the real world? Please see below.
>>
>>> It wasn't an accidental discovery. It happened because almost every
>>> multimillion-speaker language has a loan word stock that is 25-75% of
>>> its total root word stock.
>>
>> Evidence and/or citation, please. I have a hard time believing this
>> for all (approximately) 6000 languages of the world today (to say
>> nothing of the past).

You can also read about the topic in Esperanto. Hartmut Traunmüller
(linguistics professor emeritus) has made a presentation for Stockholm's
Esperanto society with the title "La plej disvastigxintaj vortoj". The
presentation gives examples of many global words. It's at
http://www2.ling.su.se/staff/hartmut/intervok.htm

"Are there really enough forms in common to create a genuinely useful
language in the real world?"
It depends on how wide-spread words are required. Of course there are
not enough words with 100% global coverage, but there are great many
with 75% coverage, even more with 50% coverage and more than enough with
25% coverage.

--Risto